Hadar Saifan

Northern Lights, 2014

Donated by the Lucie Rozenbaum Foundation to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's art collection

Size: 110X160

The boundaries of the walls, doorways and stairs are marked according to law with luminescent paint in the public shelter (to address the adaptive eyes). In a condition of a power failure or the transition between a day-stay and an overnight, the fluorescent lights switched off and the markings illuminates themselves as they emit the light loaded in them. The functional marking of the space becomes an abstract visual image that floats in the dark, a modern composition in stick-light green, similar in color to night vision equipment. As the light in it ends, it fades away, decays into the darkness like a temporary photography. It is the last burning of the space to the mind, just a moment before total darkness underground.

Hadar Saifan grew up in Dafna, a northern border community located just a few minutes’ walk from Lebanon. Throughout her childhood she experienced frequent emergencies with her community, spending days and weeks in public shelters underground. Today, Saifan lives on the northern front line and responds to war events in real time using her camera.